Meanwhile, the revision of history…
A crowd of protesters gathered outside the old Durham County courthouse on Main Street Monday evening in opposition to a Confederate monument in front of the government building.
Around 7:10 p.m. a woman using a ladder climbed the statue of a Confederate soldier and attached a rope around the statue.
Moments later, the crowd pulled on the rope and the statue fell. One man quickly ran up and spat on the statue and several others began kicking it.
Durham police later said they monitored the protests to make sure they were “safe,” but did not interfere with the statue toppling because it happened on county property.
“Because this incident occurred on county property, where county law enforcement officials were staffed, no arrests were made by DPD officers,” Durham Police spokesman Wil Glenn wrote in an email statement.
If a community wants to remove a statue, vote to remove it. I happen to think that statues are part of history, and that history is real. But statues are also tributes of sorts (or they can be, anyway), and if the city of Durham votes to stop paying tribute to the Confederate soldier and to take down the statue I’m perfectly okay with that, too. What I’m not okay with is mobs taking matters into their own hands, and police standing by while it happens.
By the way, I make an exception for the aftermath of an actual revolution, where this sort of thing often happens and is often appropriate.
Leftist thugs, aided and abetted by both parties and the entire journalistic and corporate establishment, are engaging in damnatio memoriae. One is reminded of Orwell’s warning that he who controls the past controls the future.
These delusional cosplaying teletubbies think they are in a revolution.
The people who pulled down Saddam’s statute had standing and cause to celebrate the destruction of a monument to their oppressor. These morons are pawns of an oppressor. Someone should look into whether they are being paid $15/hour and if not why not.
It’s worse than a revision of history. It’s an obliteration of history and its consignment to the memory hole.
These thugs are red guards of the establishment, helping the establishment and deep state regain power like the red guards helping Mao regain power. It saddens me how stupid people are.
Victor Davis Hanson has written about similar things here in California. The plaques affixed to historical buildings are illegally removed, primarily for the value of the bronze, but the effect is the same – the erasure of history by the disfigurement of its monuments. He compares it to the period of Roman decline when the civilized world fell into anarchy.
That this happened while police watched tells us we are quickly approaching real civil unrest. We are facing a violent future it seems. The left will say that Trump is the cause, but this has been building for a long time. He’s not the catalyst, only the excuse.
The narrative must be served.
Dave,
“It saddens me how stupid people are.”
Most are indeed mentally lazy and gullible. Many need to feel like their lives have meaning and purpose. A ’cause’ whose trigger point has come, never lacks for cannon fodder. A relative few, cynically use the “useful idiots”.
Sheeple always outnumber the sheepdogs “who allow them to sleep peaceably in their beds at night” and most wolves who prey upon the sheeple know full well that “a wolf in sheep’s clothing” never lacks for dinner.
The people in the article at the link are committing a criminal act. They are doing so because they feel themselves morally superior to the majority, which prefers that the statues remain. These people pose a far greater danger to our way of life than the statues. They have no qualms about using physical force to get their way when the majority opposes them.
Read history. They didn’t.
In a rare, full-blown “Pope hat” ruling Scott Adams has opined that the confederate statutes should come down.
And he’s pretty convincing (I can’t believe I just admitted that).
Link here. Note: This is a video (38 minutes).
Civic memorials usually do carry the idea of tribute and, as such, I’ve never understood how those having anything to do with the Confederacy could be seen as not being a lament for the passing of the antebellum way of life in the South, which meant slavery.
In the late great Soviet Union the Communists were always rewriting history. They even had a joke about it. The future is always certain but the past is always changing.
Durham, NC, my home for ten years while on the Duke faculty, is 40% black and Duke is the overwhelmingly biggest employer in Durham County. Durham is a Leftist (I decline now to use the ‘liberal’ word, which has become meaningless) town run by and for Leftists. The current (need I say black?) Democratic mayor has been in office for 16 years.
The fabled Mike Nifong, a white, anti-white racist D.A. who prosecuted and persecuted the Duke lacrosse players in 2006 based on the preposterous allegation of sex abuse by a black prostitute, was part of Durham’s power structure. The Duke president and Board of Trustees went along with Nifong, did nothing to defend its students or speak up on behalf of their Constitutional rights. The lacrosse coach was fired (for what?) and the team’s season cancelled though they were highly ranked as to capturing the NCAA crown, and only three of the fifty-odd were pointed out by said whore in photo lineups of only the team members, no outside citizens, and not repetetively so. She subsequently retracted some of those identified, and ‘identified’ others.
A black full professor of English, Houston Baker (tenure holder, etc) published an open letter villifying Duke as a plantation (would a true plantation university make a black a full prof, moving from hire as asst prof to full prof in 7 years?), and all its students as rich, spoiled white kids. His remarks were objected to only by the provost. His consequence? He got an endowed chair at Vanderbilt four months later, where he is today, regarded as a “great teacher”.
To be wrongfully prosecuted for being white has entered our idiomatic language as ‘being nifonged’.
There is also a ‘historically’ black so-called university in Durham, North Carolina Central University. It uses trash for brains. The lacrosse accuser was a student there; four separate male semen DNAs were identified in her panties, none of them being from her boyfriend or the Dukies. She is now in prison for 2nd degree murder of a ‘boyfriend’. Kick the can down the road…
Duke Chapel, a glorious cathedral-like structure (the founding post-Civil War Dukes were Methodists and tobacco barons) now houses Muslims for daily ‘services’).
None of this you ever wanted to know!
Ann, your lack of knowledge should embarrass. Read a full biography of Robert Edward Lee and get a grip on the meanings of the words “Honor” and”Duty”.
If trashing statues is OK with you, what do you think should be the fate of Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia, where the post-war Lee was its president? Or Washington University in St. Louis?
I was waiting for someone to point out that Durham and Charlottesville are both college towns and consequently run by democrats. Remember the Red Guards were mostly high school and college students.
I suggest this book if you would like to learn about Robert E. Lee. It’s his personal notes and letters published by his son after his death.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0914427660/ref=x_gr_w_bb_sout?ie=UTF8&tag=x_gr_w_bb_sout-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0914427660&SubscriptionId=1MGPYB6YW3HWK55XCGG2
I forgot to mention the motto of Duke U is “Eruditio et Religio” and at the center of its seal is the Christian Cross.
I look at these images and all I see is a Progressive Taliban, aping the destruction of the giant Buddha statues in Afghanistan.
Symbols? Tributes?
Arguably so. But what these vacuous apostles to the Progressive Temple lack is enough knowledge to accurately discern the symbolism, and comprehend that which is the subject of tribute.
They are destroying them because destruction is all they know: The destruction of standards, mores, symbols and tradition, heedless of worth, import or even cautionary value.
How long before Maxine Waters introduces a bill to tear down the Washington and Jefferson monuments?
There’s a more recent book on a cache of Lee’s letters found in 2002 — Reading the Man: A Portrait of Robert E. Lee Through His Private Letters. They show a man who not only believed in slavery, but also treated his own slaves cruelly.
Ann,
“In a 1856 letter, Lee wrote that slavery is “a moral & political evil.” But Lee also wrote in the same letter that God would be the one responsible for emancipation and blacks were better off in the U.S. than Africa.”
“Through [the North’s] victory an entirely new social order was to be established that would alter the relationship between the races forever. Unlike so many other Southerners, Lee embraced the new order. After peace had been achieved through unconditional surrender, the South became a vast, heavily occupied military zone with black Union soldiers seemingly everywhere.
One Sunday at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Richmond, a well-dressed, lone black man, whom no one in the community–white or black–had ever seen before, had attended the service, sitting unnoticed in the last pew.
Just before communion was to be distributed, he rose and proudly walked down the center aisle through the middle of the church where all could see him and approached the communion rail, where he knelt. The priest and the congregation were completely aghast and in total shock.
No one knew what to do…except General Lee. He went to the communion rail and knelt beside the black man and they received communion together–and then a steady flow of other church members followed the example he had set.”
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/09/0907_smithgenlee_2.html
The title to this post doesn’t fit. If knocking down the statue constitutes a revision of history, then surely voting to take it down does too.
The various Nazis, KKK members and Neo-Confederates who recently marched would have us believe they belong to some sort of historical preservation society. They do not. They oppose taking down Gen Lee’s statue because they honor General Lee, not for any positive attributes he may have had, but for his evil.
A few more lines from Lee’s 1856 letter:
Painful discipline, indeed.
Once again, where were the police in all this? One or two officers would have been enough to put a stop to all that. Instead, if you watch the video, you see a mob of ignorant, jeering young vandals. By not acting forcefully now to maintain law and order, there will be worse trouble in the future.
And yes, despite my screen name (a term which dates back to before the American Revolution), I say keep those Confederate statues and memorials up.
Moving fastforward to today, Instapundit links to the Daily Wire — 200 SJWs showed up at the New York Museum and demanded that a stature of Pres. Teddy Roosevelt be taken down, destroyed because of his “racism.” They also demand the removal of any number of exhibits in the museum which they deem racist and so on.
This is good news. Showing their true colors. We’ll see how much gets covered in the MSM.
Frog…just out of curiosity…& you can say “none of your business”…what is your field of expertise and teaching?
Y’know, I can see, for example, demonsrating in favor of the $15 minimum wage. I personally think it’s a bad idea — no need to expound right here, especially for this readership — but I can understand why people would have a serious, *pressing* opinion about it and would want to demonstrate in the streets.
I emphasize the word *pressing*.
The same might apply to, for example, demonstrating in favor of stricter gun control. Again, I’m personally not at all sold on that, and again, no need to expound right here, especially for this readership — but (again) I can understand why people would have a serious, *pressing* opinion about it and would want to demonstrate in the streets.
There is nothing — zero, zip, nada — *pressing* about a statue of a confederate dude from the nineteenth century. I can understand why people can have an opinion on it, but there is nothing *pressing* about the issue.
Where I’m trying to go with this is that it’s not a vital part of anyone’s current life — unlike one’s job wage or one’s concern for gun safety / gun protection — that realistically might spur one to take to the streets about a long-dead confederate dude. Unless, that is, some entity or some one (George Soros?) is actively agitating people to commit violent mayhem (is there another kind?).
The confederacy is by now a symbol, and a very powerful one, but do people on their own decide to do this (unlike agitating for a $15 wage or gun control)? Nope (sez M J R). Not on their own. Not without some outside agitating influence.
Bible verse for today: (KJV Ephesians 6:12) “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.”
I’m told these were largely out-of-staters. To quote my hero Gomer Pyle, “surprise surprise surprise”.
I’ve never been a fan of these sorts of memorials and statues to specific individuals, particularly government sorts, but their removal is criminal, the perpetrators should be prosecuted.
I would also note that removing a plaque or statue does not erase history, it may remove something from the public square, but the history of the place and the individual remain.
Ann, I will assume that you speak from ignorance, and not perversely. It does not take much research to learn that a really small minority of people in the Antebellum South were involved with slavery; and that holds true for the majority who fought and died for the Confederacy. Most came from small family farms. If you are at all familiar with the history, you may know that the area that suffered the most was the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia; an area dotted with small farms, mostly owned by German emigrants. General Sheridan conducted a scorched earth campaign through that valley which left the farms in ruins and the families destitute.
I am not familiar with the work you cited on Robert E. Lee. I will have to look at it; but, it is certainly at odds with other accounts of Lee. His father was sent to debtors prison, and died when Lee was a child. Lee was raised by his mother in “straitened” circumstances. He, of course, spent his entire adult life in the Army. It is not clear where and when slavery fit into his life; and the notion of cruelty to anyone is foreign to all I know about him. And I know a bit. At any rate, Abraham Lincoln thought enough of Lee’s character to offer him command of the Union Army. (One can only speculate as to how that offer to a native Southerner, and alleged slave abuser, meshes with a war about slavery.) Like many other Army officers with Southern roots, Lee chose to side with his home state.
As in every war the victor gets to create the narrative. So, the accepted narrative in most of the country is that the war was all about slavery; but, not among native Southerners. Many believe that it was a struggle for the State’s Rights that were part of the original bargain. These people do not see the statues and memorials as evil, but rather symbols of respect for the suffering that their ancestors experienced. I fear that there is a a good bit of ignorance about the South, and Southern attitudes. How else could people be shocked that many are incensed that the heritage of a region is suddenly over turned and denied to satisfy some latent sense of outrage?
“I make an exception for the aftermath of an actual revolution…”
These loonies think they are waging revolution. Permanent revolution:
https://youtu.be/8JGfsHc_mqw?t=116
Went to school in the 50/60s and we were taught that the Civil War was fought to preserve the Union, from 4TH GRADE right up to US HISTORY in high school.
If trashing statues is OK with you, what do you think should be the fate of Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia, where the post-war Lee was its president? Or Washington University in St. Louis?
So, why don’t we take down the statues that they revere? If we can’t have nice things, they can’t have nice things.
Funny, but I’m related to Robert E. Lee (cousins, however many times removed) and I’ve never had the slightest interest in the man before now.
People unfamiliar with southern culture, particularly the rural Scotti-Irish culture, do not have a clue why non-slave owner southerners fought for the Confederacy. To put it bluntly, it was because they were inclined to just say no to DC.
I am so inclined. If that makes me one of the “isms” so be it. I do not trust anyone who thinks the greater good requires me to disarm or believes I should kow tow to the autocratic whims of DC or Des Moines. I am free and sovereign. I bow to no one. Including the POTUS or SCOTUS, and especially to Congress.I do not consider whores and thieves my superiors. The only one who rules my life is Mrs Parker, to a certain extent. BTW, on the 13th of August we celebrated 48 years of marriage.
The South could use more statues of Lincoln.
I applauded in 2003 when one was put up in Richmond, Virginia. (It’s rather nice, I think, showing him sitting on a bench beside his son Tad. Do the obvious search if you want to see a picture of it.)
Happy Anniversary, Parker! Regarding your “ruler,” there is a lot of wisdom in the expression, Happy Wife, Happy Life.
The Appalachian areas of the South — where there were many Scots-Irish — generally opposed secession. Think of West Virginia, western North Carolina, eastern Kentucky, and eastern Tennessee. (The latter has two of the most stable Republican House districts in all of America.)
And then there is the “free state of Winston” in northern Alabama. The Wikipedia article has the essentials, if you are curious.
So, the accepted narrative in most of the country is that the war was all about slavery; but, not among native Southerners.
Hmm. Someone should have informed Alexander Stephens, the vice-president of the Confederacy, who in his Cornerstone speech in 1861 said this:
We are witnessing our very own Cultural Revolution. Terrifying.
Ann,
You make assumptions. There is no argument that slavery was an evil institution, no matter where it occured or presently occurs. You assume everyone who fought for the South supported slavery or owned slaves. Were that true, the Civil War would have lasted a few months at most.
I agree that slavery in the past, now, and in the future is evil. It is incredible that I need to state that! But you do not understand, or choose to misunderstand, why the vast majority of southerners in 1880s fought against DC. So now California is on the verge or pretending to be of leaving the Union; should we now go to war with the fruitcakes? Many cities have declared sancuary for illegals aliens. Is that okay? Choose federalism or left the states exist under the 9th and 10th.
The center can not hold, a rough beast slouches.
Parker, a second congratulations on the anniversary. As to your thoughts about serving masters in DC, ditto.
Civic memorials usually do carry the idea of tribute and, as such, I’ve never understood how those having anything to do with the Confederacy could be seen as not being a lament for the passing of the antebellum way of life in the South, which meant slavery.
That’s a very northern way of looking at it. As if the only thing worth noting about the old South was slavery. And I guess it is, if you’re a northerner.
For most southerners who venerate the Confederacy, it’s about a lot more than slavery, as well as being a symbol of their continued rejection of northern imposition on them. Of course, the destruction of their statues by liberals is just another symbol of northern aggression.
It’s safe to say, liberals have no clue what they’re doing by tearing that stuff down.
Some other reasons non-slaveholders were for the Confederacy were spelled out in an 1861 article by James Dunwoody Brownson DeBow, who was “the founder and editor of the highly influential DeBow’s Review, which he published on and off from 1846 until his death in 1867. A secessionist, and an advocate of Southern development and industrialization, DeBow opposed Lincoln in the 1860 election and was an ardent supporter of the Davis administration during the war”:
There is a movement now to remove the statue of Teddy Roosevelt at the museum of natural history in NYC and, of course, ever popular, to abolish Columbus Day…
An American Cultural Revolution is the Great Leap Forward, hi ho.
CV and other Chuck,
Thanks and ditoo back.
Sean,
I do undertand. The problem now is how we move forward without another civil war is Article 5.
That’s the picture that’s been going through my head since I heard about this, too.
This doesn’t end well, I’m afraid.
…entirely predictable, tho’.
On my Instagram artsy feed someone commented on an esoteric post: If I see anyone knocking down civil war statues, I’m going to hit them on the back of the knees with a baseball bat…
Lol!
ann@11:58,
Nice try, but you still do not grok it. It was about the hegenomy of DC. So it remains to this day and tomorrow
Those statue toppling thugs with all their spitting and bird flipping remind me of red guards wrecking Confucius temples toppling Confucius statues during the cultural revolution, claiming that Confucius was the symbol of Feudalism/conservativism/oppression.
Esther,
Front of the knees after the throat. Priorities, prorities,
Addresses the topic of this post.
https://amgreatness.com/2017/08/15/leftist-revolutions-no-limits/
“The Left couldn’t care less about this particular issue, just as they couldn’t care less about any of their purported “issues.” As David Horowitz often points out, Marxists believe “the issue is never the issue; the issue is always revolution.” The American Left shares this impulse. They use an issue, then move on to the next.
…
Social Justice Warriors (SJWs) are already coming out against Abraham Lincoln. And, on cue, there has been vandalism at the Lincoln Memorial and calls to remove the statue of Theodore Roosevelt from the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. Very soon there will be a push to scrub the entire American Revolution and all of the Founding Fathers. Thomas Jefferson will be first, but George Washington won’t be far behind.
Overriding all of this is the push to declare all of conservatism illegal. All religions not part of the cult of Leftism are deemed hate speech. Any support of the United States as a discrete country is hateful, bigoted, and evil. You supporting your own existence or political power is racism, nationalism, and white supremacy.
The Left has no limits. It’s vital to understand that.”
http://libertyunyielding.com/2017/08/14/cartoon-day-alt-bias-smear-job/
http://libertyunyielding.com/2017/08/15/cartoon-day-hot-off-press/
A trio of posts from Sarah Hoyt (Portuguese expat now an American citizen, SF writer, and interesting personal viewpoints as a survivor of a European socialist country).
https://accordingtohoyt.com/2017/08/11/if-you-see-something-say-something/
So, between the book banners and those who would fire people for sourced documents stating what any neuro-scientist will tell you over breakfast, the left has been on a tear and is going insane.
It is not, as some of my very young friends think, that the left has more dominance or is going more bully-like than ever.
No, this is the mark of a cultural revolution, where the dominant faction is losing its grip. You see, they controlled the entire culture for decades and anyone who talked back was “crazy” and anyone they declared evil or stupid was evil or stupid.
https://accordingtohoyt.com/2017/08/14/fools-to-the-left-of-me-clowns-to-the-right/#comments
No one, not even Drudge is touching the Charlottesville insanity. Or it wasn’t last night. That is because “nobody knows nothing.”
Depending on what actually happened and why, this could very well be the fuse that heats the cold civil war. And if you’re rubbing your hands, don’t be. Go read about the type of civil war where the populations are thoroughly emulsified. It’s not pretty, it doesn’t end sometimes for centuries, and it takes civilization down three levels, at least.
…
And yet, the way things have been going, with not only an entire cohort that was indoctrinated in Russian propaganda (originally) and then just in America-hatred in our best schools, it might be inevitable. How long can a nation subsist with the enemy within? Particularly when the enemy’s power is threatened by new technology. Particularly when that enemy is financed by Soros who might very well BE the beast of the apocalypse?
In America, if it were healthy, the crazy that happened in the weekend would never have happened. Both Nazis and communists have the right to say whatever the hell they want to. As long as they don’t have power, let them scream. But that’s not possible in the land of safe rooms and microaggressions.
Also in a healthy society, if the fracas had happened because of the usual provocateurs, the rest of society would shake their head and go “So much crazy.” not pile on (particularly on the left side) claiming this just proves all their theories.
And no, to whom it may concern, a region not wanting their past or their regional heroes erased to appease a vocal minority does NOT make them white supremacists. This idiotic changing of names, removing of statues and erasing people from history is NOT the work of a free society. It is wholly Stalinist and is letting the rest of the world know you by your fruits as it were. I have nothing invested in the ACW, except for having studied it enough to know it was more complex than most people think, and I’m only “southern” by fiat of my friends, but even I get outraged at the erasing of the past of the region. And you know damn well they’re coming for Jefferson and Washington next. At which point they’ll have to go through me. It’s the left’s old bullshit of removing the giants of the past so their diminutive stature looks tall. Pfui.
I still hope it won’t come to physical fighting. I don’t know if there’s a path where that doesn’t happen and worse doesn’t happen. But I hope it doesn’t come to physical fighting because I don’t want to indulge the left’s fantasies, either their fantasies of revolution or their fantasies of martyrdom, and this would be one followed by the other. I don’t want to indulge their wish to bring down America. Pour oil on the waters wherever you can, and no sale their crazy as much as you can.
And if the evil must come, those of you who are praying people, pray that it’s short, relatively bloodless, and that what comes after doesn’t make the crazies of Charlottesville (both sides) look good.
https://accordingtohoyt.com/2017/08/15/and-so-its-come-to-this-a-blast-from-the-past-from-november-2014/#comments
When I was young I was a liberal. Well, not by the standards of where I lived, but by the standards of the US. Impossible not to be a liberal when you’re raised in Europe.
Here are some of the things I believed
[you all know the drill, but the list is edifying]
…
For some reason I had a burning passion for the truth. That whole thing about hungering and thirsting for justice? Well for me, raised in a village, and seeing people’s characters distorted by malicious gossip, the first and almost the only aim of justice was to re-establish the truth.
…
It took over 1oo years to come to this. We can’t recover in a year. We’re going to have to take incremental steps, with infinite patience.
So it’s come to this. It won’t be easy. I think it’s doable, because their worldview in no way reflects reality and is collapsing in shards all around them. But it won’t be easy and it won’t be fast and a lot of it will feel like, in Dave Freer’s colorful phrase “Taking on hell with a bucket.”
But then easy battles have no glory. Go forth. Fight the lies in your head, so you can fight them in others’ heads. Write compelling stories and teach your children well.
Our culture can be saved. And we’re the only ones who can do it.
Now go. In the end, we win, they lose. Make it so.
It is rather strange that some argue as if slavery wasn’t the pivotal issue for the Civil War.
Of course, there were plenty of other things wrapped up in it, but were it not for slavery, doubtful there would have been a war.
Of course, not every Confederate soldier was a slave owner, nor necessarily was whole hearted behind the idea.
Not much different really than how the Axis soldiers weren’t all in on the merits of the holocaust.
.
Now, does that mean that every last remnant of the Confederate ought to be eliminated from the public sphere?
No. There is a place for history.
But, just as it would seem more than odd to have statues of hitler, goebbels, eichmann, etc. on display in parks and other public settings as part of some historical German cultural heritage, it should be obvious there is well more than just that history that these of the Confederate represent.
.
Should this include Geo Washington and company who were slaveholders?
That’s the fear isn’t it?
Well, we often hear in comments around here of how the “left” as a whole group must be “evil” (or something similar), directly or by implication.
Should we treat the Founders similarly?
Or, could people be for some rotten ideas, at a time when the moral question hadn’t popularly surfaced and gained momentum, and still be good people in other parts of their lives?
Surely, they’d also be considered misogynists by our standards today.
How far is too far? Should they be absolved simply because of the era? Does the rightness of what they fought for and established outweigh the personal bad of their lives?
Is there a difference between holding to a “custom” when it was “common” and “accepted” vs fighting a war of magnitude in order to maintain that “custom”, when it was being abolished in other nations with similar heritage, and as the morality of it was in public question, far from consensus?
Not an easy topic to grapple with.
.
I do know that there is not a lot of honesty about this on both sides.
One side, looking to use this as a bludgeon to advance their current victimhood and agenda.
The other, afraid to recognize these issues and complexities as if to admit anything is to give in to the guilt of that original sin.
IMHO, the left gets power out of that fear and the refusal to recognize or the downplay of those issues, and it becomes an achilles heel that they can exploit over and over again.
Besides, aren’t we far enough removed from that event that nobody should feel any “ownership” for that generation’s decisions and beliefs?
.
It seems to me there is a space where
1) those complexities, those imperfections, human frailties can be recognized, while leaving the Founders’ ideas and institutions intact (what THEY fought for), and
2) the Confederate can be respectfully retired to museums or similar to learn and remember (the driving issue of what they fought for, the heavy toll paid by all involved, etc.) vs “commemorate”.
“Nice try, but you still do not grok it. It was about the hegenomy of DC. So it remains to this day and tomorrow” – parker
Confusing cause and effect.
Of course, those folks didn’t want DC telling them what they could do on this issue.
In order to maintain slavery, the southern states had to argue it was a matter of states’ rights, and that it took priority above all others.
They put it on the table.
Aside from the other horrible costs this country suffered, this is one price that we, indeed, arguably keep on paying for today.
In this enlightened age, there are few I believe, but what will acknowledge, that slavery as an institution is a moral & political evil in any Country. It is useless to expatiate on its disadvantages. I think it however a greater evil to the white than to the black race, & while my feelings are strongly interested in behalf of the latter, my sympathies are more strong for the former. The blacks are immeasurably better off here than in Africa, morally, socially & physically. The painful discipline they are undergoing, is necessary for their instruction as a race, & I hope will prepare & lead them to better things. How long their subjugation may be necessary is Known & ordered by a wise & merciful Providence.
This actually sounds pretty enlightened imo.
Cultural Revolution…
Anybody else here read that old short story by Hawthorne, “Earth’s Holocaust”? Where everybody goes and throws all their holiest things onto the great big bonfire with all the exuberance of a fresh young revolution, and then they keep throwing stuff onto it and they start to get worried that maybe they’re throwing out too much stuff but can’t stop?
Yeah.
Manju: “… they [Nazis/KKK} honor General Lee, not for any positive attributes he may have had, but for his evil.” Do you think the vast majority of people who wish to preserve these statues want to honor Robert E. Lee for his “evil”?
I am a Northerner with no particular attachment to the “Lost Cause” but I would note that in the 1950s and 60s when there was a real civil rights movement protesting real discrimination and segregation they did not have much time to worry about statues. Why is this coming up now, 50 years later?
FOAF…You do realize that there was a huge spike in confederate monument building in the 1950’s and 60’s don’t you? Ditto for flying the Confederate Flag on Government property. This was not a coincidence.
BigMag: You can mull over the rights and wrongs of the past all you want, and carefully divide up and weigh each and every sin. In the end, aren’t the 620,000 soldiers and 50,000 civilians (mostly Southerners) who lost their lives in the Civil War enough atonement? Must their memory be ground into the dust, the monuments smashed, the graves desecrated, and the killing resumed? Because that’s where this is leading.
There is also a racist component to it, and it is coming primarily from the left, not the right.
BigMag, your comparison of Confederate soldiers to Hitler, Goebbels, and Eichmann is over the top insulting and something I’d expect at Daily Kos or Huffington Post.
There is now a move by the mayor of Baltimore to have Lee and Taney statues removed to cemeteries throughout the state. I happened to live next to one of those cemeteries. It contains the bodies of 2,400+ unidentified confederates mostly who fought at Antietam and South Mountain. Every year there are memorial services held there–not to celebrate slavery but to remind us all of the tragedy of the war and of the families who never learned where their sons bodies were.
My great grandfather was awarded the medal of honor for capturing one of the confederate battle flags at Five Forks. That is what cut off the confederates at Petersburg and led to the surrender. After the war, my great grandfather wanted to form a militia. I can only assume that he feared there would be continuing uprisings from southern warriors across the Potomac. The militias never happened. Perhaps that was because Grant and Lee emphasized reconciliation. I’ve always thought that if Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, who saw as much horror as anyone, could treat the surrendering soldiers with respect and be willing to see them as brothers, how can we do differently.
These statues give us all an opportunity to learn humility. I believe there are many in Baltimore who need it more than those in Western Maryland where descendants of former slave owners live peacefully with descendants of the other side and where native black people are working with others to improve their communities.
Humility is what we all need now. In a hundred years a miniscule number of us will be remembered. perhaps by doing more to help one another, we can leave something bigger than us for the future.
“Must their memory be ground into the dust, the monuments smashed, the graves desecrated, and the killing resumed?” – Other Chuck
Strange. That and the rest is so far off the charts of what I’m saying I wonder if you even read what I wrote.
I agree with Neo that they should be removed only through the orderly civil process (votes, etc).
But the idea that “history is being obliterated” is kind of silly. History will stand. We’re not burning civil war history books. What’s being obliterated is the tribute.
This isn’t new. The losers in a war rarely if ever get statues/monuments. There’s a reason that there aren’t statues of SS soldiers in Europe. They lost.
It’s the tribute/honor paid to the confederacy that is the problem. The confederacy lost, and rightly so. I’ve read a great deal about the civil war and understand the admiration we might have for the bravery of the soldiers, the genius of the generals, etc, but the cause they were fighting for was not just “States rights”. It was slavery. If you want to be historically accurate you can’t sugar coat that or wish it away.
They lost, and thank God they did. I’m good with taking the monuments down. I wasn’t always good with it. But I think it’s time.
But let’s do it in a legal and orderly fashion.
“These statues give us all an opportunity to learn humility. ”
Why, if your appetites and subjective feelings are esteemed as the gauge by which all reality is judged, should you learn humility?
Regarding whether Washington, Jefferson should have their statues taken down, I don’t believe that would be a good idea.
I’ve seen this argued more fully online in certain places. Washington and Jefferson were slavers. But that’s not why their statues are up. Their statues are up for the huge positive impact they made in the world – founding the country, the declaration of independence, etc.
The statues of confederate ware heroes were erected to commemorate what they did – which was fight hard for a very bad cause.
That’s the difference. If we only want to have statues of perfectly good men and women up, there won’t be any statues.
*war* heroes.
Mayor Hughes had the Baltimore statues removed last night. So far there is no indication that our cemetery wants them. I bet she would have loved to move the antifa fights to Republican western Maryland.
“Washington and Jefferson were slavers”
LOL
It’s apparent we live in a world where communication with some people, if you are trying to use words, is pointless.
They simply have no respect for or concern with precise definitions or meanings and distinctions, or for much else than feelings, mostly theirs: their feelings of “inclusion”, their feelings of being appreciated, their feelings about the feelings of those they feel for.
Words just don’t do much good with them.
Unfortunately, there is no other tolerable way to communicate with them, since feeling their feelings is as perfectly odious, as it is impossible.
This is what happens, or is accentuated, when people no longer recognize a distinction between the polity, and “society”. It is all – men, women, institutions, public and or private – just one big schmoozey smorgasbord which they “feel” entitled to browse to the appreciative applause of forcibly mustered millions.
These masked miscreants and their crybaby apologists just are not worth the trouble or price of an association.
That they cannot even grasp the principle underlying this last judgment, is the very source of the problem.
BigMag, I read every word of what you said and understood it perfectly. Moral equivalence between the Reich and the Confederacy followed by the the faint hope that the Founders can be forgiven. The complexities of which you speak, the subtle differences and all the other mush is not part of the agenda of the shock troops of the left who are out for blood.
The merits and/or demerits of either side in the conflict in Charlottesville or the Civil War or any other conflict is completely irrelevant to the Constitution and the rule of law.
Either we have a constitution and protect it with the rule of law or we don’t. If we do. we live up to the principles laid down by our founders in the Constitution and enforce the rule of law no matter our personal opinions of either side.
If we decide some free speech is just too offensive to be protected then we open the door to our free speech being judged the same.
I’ll be happy to debate the merits of the Civil War and/or the conflict at Charlottesville from either side at a future time but those are separate issues from what’s going on in the country today.
As a matter of fact, if we don’t support and defend the Constitution and the rule of law in hard cases then there will be no Constitution and the rule of law to protect us when, what we consider the more politically correct thoughts and actions, are taken.
What we are arguing today is whether or not we still believe in the statement – I MAY NOT AGREE WITH WHAT YOU HAVE TO SAY, BUT I WILL DEFEND TO THE DEATH YOUR RIGHT TO SAY IT.
Well……..do we? I do! How about you?
Bill:
The tribute is actually part of the history. Some of these statues are tributes to soldiers.
And with Robert E. Lee, for example, the history becomes reduced to a single thought: he fought for slavery. Who he was as a person and leader, and who he was postwar, and why many people revere him for those reasons mostly, is being or has been obliterated.
Simplified into the Emmanuel Goldstein and the Two Minute Hate.
I would love to host a few of these statues on our family farm in Virginia, which was in the thick of things during the war. I have found civil war relics in the front yard of the old log cabin, built around 1750 and continuously inhabited to this day. We have confederates buried in a small cemetery out back. It’s a place where history lives and we’d be proud to honor the sacrifice of these people even if we don’t agree with the cause.
Neo,
I understand. I have never advocated before for the removal of CW statues because I’m somewhat ambivalent about it. And I completely agree that it must be done orderly and according to the law (in other words, if there’s a statue on city property the city can vote to take it down. If there’s one on private property the owner can decide to take it down or keep it up).
But I can understand why people would want to take a Robert E. Lee statue down. He was the losing General in a civil war that killed hundreds of thousands of American citizens and was fought, in significant part, to preserve the institution of slavery.
Of course, if preserving the statues means lining up besides those guys with the Nazi flags in C ville, count me out. That’s a conundrum for the GOP to deal with. Thus far they haven’t covered themselves in glory.
But at the end of the day, I’m not descended from slaves so I may not be the best person to ask about it. But more and more it seems like the tide is turning against the war monuments for civil war soldiers. Maybe it’s time.
And, as I said before, this isn’t “erasing history”.the history remains and is available everywhere.
Tough subject.
See what happens when you allow Demoncrats to take hold of the narrative while everybody sits down and tries to outsource the work to others.
They started a war in the US, called Civil War 1, and then blamed it on blacks and Republicans. Now they start Civil War 2, by blaming the white slaves they used as cannonfodder for being racists, when it was the Demoncrat slave lords that set things up all along.
Who benefits? The Demoncrat slave lords. They were never extinguished, remember that.
Depending on what actually happened and why, this could very well be the fuse that heats the cold civil war.
Civil War 2 is inevitable. All the prophets knew about this, some of them even before 2007.
I believe ever single statue should be abolished, starting with the Lucifer’s Own and Greek idols in DC.
It’s all a violation of Divine laws.
In the end, aren’t the 620,000 soldiers and 50,000 civilians (mostly Southerners) who lost their lives in the Civil War enough atonement?
The Torah and the laws of sacrifice during Moses time, concerned sacrificing animal blood in order to cover up the sins and mistakes of humans. This progressed all the way to the point where some sins could not be redeemed except by the blood of the Son of God. Animal blood and Isaac’s blood was not nearly enough.
In that context, CIvil War 1 only atoned for the sins and violations previous to that. Everything the slave lord did afterwards, including nullifying Lee and using the KKK created by Nathan B Forrest for evil ends, was not atoned for. It wasn’t covered and is still a problem to day, as people may have noticed.
The people who thought Civil War 2 wasn’t inevitable, are the same ones who will create the situation that they were too naive to get.
To put it bluntly, it was because they were inclined to just say no to DC.
They were deceived into thinking the Northerners were invading. That is why they call it the “War of Northern Aggression” remember.
In reality, and the historical truth which they have covered up, was that the Southern slave lords fought for the Federal Fugitive Slave Act to be enforced. If they had said that slavery was just a state’s right issue, it would never have allowed the Fugitive Slave Act to be enforced, because every abolitionist state like New York was just going to NULLIFY IT. Nullification, recall, is a state right.
So it was never about state’s right, from the Confed pov. It was sold as autonomy to the Scot Irish tribes. But then again, a lot of things by Lucifer are sold to tribesmen and they buy it up. Look at Islam and Arabs.
The real person that wanted slavery to be acording to state’s rights, was Lincoln. And the South killed Lincoln after he pardoned Lee and Bedford.
Otherwise they would have all died due to some war crime tribunal or other trumped up charge.
Big Maq: “But, just as it would seem more than odd to have statues of hitler, goebbels, eichmann, etc. on display in parks and other public settings as part of some historical German cultural heritage, it should be obvious there is well more than just that history that these of the Confederate represent.”
Isn’t it a bit ironic that there are statues of Stalin and Mao, two of history’s worst tyrants and murderers, (arguably much more evil than Hitler) in Russia and China. Why? Because they didn’t lose WWII. Had Germany and Japan won, the story would have been quite different.
Heck, there is a statue of Lenin in Seattle. He’s the man who started all the killing in Russia. Indirectly Lenin is responsible for many American deaths during the Cold War. (The war to stop Communist expansion and contain it in its sphere of influence.) Yet the progressives don’t want to tear it down. Why? (That’s an intentionally loaded question.)
That the North did not object to statues of Confederate soldiers being placed after the war was an act of good will and conciliation. The kind of good will and conciliation that is not in evidence among the progressive movement of today.
Statues and memorials don’t hurt anyone. Unless someone takes it upon themselves to be outraged- as is happening right here, right now. People are like that. My neighbor is outraged by my American flag. Fortunately, flying my flag is protected by the law. If things continue as they are, how much longer will that be?
Taking down statues and memorials do attempt to erase history, but in this, the information age, the history does not disappear. Only the reminders of history disappear. It is an activity akin to the mindless tactics of ISIS and the Taliban.
Tearing down those statues isn’t about rejecting the South’s past, it’s about imposing on southern whites today. It’s about telling them there’s a new boss in town and he’s here to sh*t all over them.
You will note that amid all this hubbub about Confederate statues, the city of Baltimore has left the “statue” of a dog turd in place that was put there as a tribute to Divine, the 300-lbs tranny star of Pink Flamingos.
It’s not about who did what in the past, it’s about, “F*ck you, we’ve got the power now and we’re sh*tting on you because we can.” Full stop.
@Other Chuck – your second response still shows you haven’t understood what I was saying.
Wasn’t saying there was an equivalence between the reich and the confederates.
But, was asking folks, who think the statues in question were merely about “preserving history” (or some such), to consider that there is much more “baggage” to it, just like there would be if we had statues of nazi generals.
It is an analogy to get folks who only see the “history” part to also see that “baggage”.
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That should be an obvious point, but somehow gets lost or side stepped in this debate about the statues.
It seems incredibly hard to see that folks can honestly have that kind of reaction to those confederate statues.
I don’t think we do ourselves any favor by ignoring that aspect, as it creates a leverage point for the left to gain power from it.
It is the perfect wedge issue, as it is so emotionally charged that many cannot see past their own point of view, thus becoming very hard to have a reasonable discussion about it.
And boy are they using it.
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You can call the separate discussion about G Washington as “mush” all you want, but the reality is our history is not so clean, as it is fraught with anomalies and inconsistencies.
I am far from advocating that it means throwing the baby out with the bathwater, and revising men like him out of history.
They didn’t live perfect lives, nor lived up to every aspect of the values they espoused, but they did fight for and established the laws and institutions that established those values which were the basis to (eventually) abrogate those “sins”.
But, not (at least) recognizing that “baggage” from the Civil War, leaves the window open for the left to directly question the legitimacy of G Washington and the Founders on the same basis.
Again, a mistake, imho.
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In all cases, where we are talking about statues or other images for display in public places, where, in a democracy, it is up to the citizens to petition their representatives to place them or remove them as they see fit.
Mobs unilaterally tearing them down is a colossal hypocrisy (for people who claim the primacy of a public choice and democracy).
That has its own consequences for the left, along with (hopefully) legal issues for those involved.
“Isn’t it a bit ironic that there are statues of Stalin and Mao” – JJ
Gosh. Didn’t know that. What are those citizens thinking?
Even folks wearing those Che t-shirts (their right) is rather disgusting, imho.
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“That the North did not object to statues of Confederate soldiers being placed after the war was an act of good will and conciliation.”
Understand that aspect very much.
It was probably a very wise compromise. We saw in WWI how taking a harsh, punishing approach to the vanquished sows the seeds for future strife.
Only, we are now removed from that period by about 150 years.
Is that “good will” and “conciliation” still merited?
To whom is it aimed today?
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There, indeed, are those on the left who play the blue vs red team argument.
Do we strike the opposite position just because we believe the left won’t extend that “conciliation”?
Or can we recognize the issues, without endorsing all that the left are positioning themselves on?
“It is an activity akin to the mindless tactics of ISIS and the Taliban.” – JJ
To the extent that mobs are unilaterally tearing them down, very much agree.
There are ways to deal with it in a democracy.
If we think the statues in public spaces are symbolic for something we disagree with, we can remove them via persuading enough voters to agree to do so.
Has anyone in Seattle tried to make the case to remove them?
Big Maq: “Has anyone in Seattle tried to make the case to remove them?”
You must not know much about Seattle. Anyone who suggested such a thing would be persona non grata. Seattle is not called the capitol of the People’s Republic Of Puget Sound for nothing. It is one of the most far left cities in the country.
@JJ – right, I don’t know much of this type of stuff about Seattle, but understand that there are many transplanted Californians there.
@JJ – right, I don’t know much of this type of stuff about Seattle, but understand that there are many transplanted Californians there.
And, thanks for raising the fact.
I believe the Seattle statue is a private one, on private property.
America has so many evil cities, that it is ridiculous for anyone to criticize foreign Axii of Evil now.
Julia: “I believe the Seattle statue is a private one, on private property.”
Right you are. Six Trump supporters (brave souls), marched around Lenin’s statue yesterday demanding its removal. The local newscast was hilarious. They just couldn’t get why anyone would object to a local “landmark.” They did mention that the owner has the statue up for sale. Great opportunity for the Communist Party USA to get themselves some art. Or maybe some other lefty like Jeff Bezos might fall in love with it and add it to his art collection.
@Julia, thanks. That sheds a somewhat different light on the issue in Seattle, as it isn’t on public property.
They can always deface it, like the libs just did to Rizzo’s statue.
Found this wiki entry on the Seattle statue.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statue_of_Lenin,_Seattle
Seems it was a privately funded venture. It was slated to be on display in front of a Slovakian restaurant, and the owner thought it a work of art to be saved from a Slovakian scrap heap to be remelted.
The man died before it was erected, it seems. The family has been looking for a buyer ever since (now $250K).
The local chamber of commerce is displaying it as a novelty item next to a shopping plaza, if I read it correctly.
Some, evidently, do take it as a symbol of the west’s triumph over communism, as it was once a display meant to awe, but in context of a display in a commercial area, the original meaning is trivialized.
http://crosscut.com/2011/04/icons-we-could-do-without/
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In context of all this, if accurate, seems the equivalence to the civil war statues is rather overblown.
Seems rather easy to deal with too…
Rather than complain about it, it seems to me that those who are greatly offended could set up an go fund me account to raise money to purchase it and then have it melted.